On 1 March, Carol Monaghan the SNP MP for Glasgow North West, went to a parliamentary committee wearing her ash cross mark and the BBC questioned if it was appropriate, or even legal, for the MP to go to work with a cross on her forehead.
Critics of the BBC raised the question of double standards citing that they would never ask if it were appropriate for a Muslim to wear a headscarf in parliament or at work.
This has happened before
In 2006 Fiona Bruce was persuaded that it wasn’t appropriate for her to wear a small cross on her necklace while reading the news. After two weeks, the BBC was forced to back down in response to protests from viewers. It then put out a statement saying it wasn’t a ‘ban’ as such just, a ‘debate’. Simultaneously, a female Muslim journalist was allowed to continue wearing the hijab while reporting BBC TV news.
